Snow Crash/Prophetic... yada yada yada

First off, I am really excited to finish this novel. Not only does it have some hysterical, yet intriguing concepts (i.e. A pizza delivery chain owned and run by the head of the mafia... hmm... GODFATHER's anyone? *insert sarcastic LOL here.*) Even if you're not into the book, you have to give Stephenson credit for his imagination. I assume he spent years before the book's publishing in '92, creating the very complex, futuristic world. In terms of technology, early 90s computer capabilities did not even come close to resembling the crazily, stunning visual ideas this guy was coming up with.

I mean, most computers looked like this:

The Macintosh Classic,

Apple's early 1990s budget model.

His computer was sleek, with thin fiber optic cables and optic lazers for a 3-D monitor.

Besides being visually creative, the book also explores social, political and economic issues, which in agreeance with many of the bloggers are almost shockingly prophetic. The CIC "stringers" add tons of gazillions of information files to the library. Some are glanced over, but some make a huge impact. I was just "wiking"/"googling" around and came upon this blog about the "UCLA Taser Incident",which I'm sure many of you may remember. If you don't know the incident, an Iranian-American UCLA student was repeatedly tasered by police for refusing to show ID (very reminiscent of the Y.T./Metacop incident coincidentally.)

One student uploaded the video to Youtube from his camera phone, and the issue spread like wildfire. It caused great debate about the particular case, and showed that Youtube can be used for more than... what was it? "Video-taping your untalented skate-boarding friend or your ugly baby falling down the stairs" (not a direct quote, but Epley said something similar in regards to Youtube earlier in the class, which got a decent laugh.)

Anywho, It is cool to see how depictions of "Reality" can almost foreshadow the future, through either great imagination, social examination, or maybe coincidentally. You be the judge.